[UK-CONTEST] CW AFS

[QUENTIN COLLIER]

Having read the other e-mails on UKCONTEST I thought I would put in a report from the other side of the tracks!

For the last decade or so I have operated from the QTH of Harry G3SBV down in darkest Kent, using the club call G4ALE. After Harry's death his widow Eileen has very kindly allowed me to continue doing so. But with the weather forecasts being so dire, their son Alan G4GLN (who always comes down to help me) and I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and we stood it down from there this year. 

So accordingly it was a case of coming on from home. As my antenna here (50ft longwire, 20ft high at one end and 12ft at the other) is, to put it euphemistically, uncompetitive and I would in any case be the club's B Team, I decided to see what could be done running 10W. To my surprise with one exception (and that was an RA6) I was able to work everything audible through the S9 + 5dB noise from next door's plasma TV - there are some folks out there with seriously good ears so well done chaps!  Only 131 QSOs so I'm well down the field but nonetheless quietly complacent.....As reported elsewhere the skip seemed quite long early on and the band seemed to go downhill badly in the last hour.

Anyway, I hope to be back to the usual site next year so unitl then (with the possible exception of the SSB event next weekend),

73





Quin G3WRR